CAFTA signed into law
Bush hails trade pact after tough fight in Congress

San Francisco Chronicle | August 3, 2005
By David Armstrong

President Bush signed the Central America Free Trade Agreement into law Tuesday, hailing the seven-nation pact as an open-door policy that will benefit U.S. exporters and seed prosperity and democracy in Central America and the Dominican Republic.

"This is more than a trade bill,'' Bush declared at a White House signing ceremony. CAFTA, he said, will strengthen the six small Latin American signatories against "forces that oppose democracy, seek to limit economic freedom and want to drive a wedge between the United States and the rest of the Americas.''

CAFTA passed after a bruising battle in Congress. It squeaked by the House, 217-215, after clearing the Senate, 54-45. Organized labor mobilized to oppose the pact, citing a fear of U.S. job loss, while environmentalists opposed it, saying it failed to protect the natural environment of the region.

The close votes give rise to questions about whether a hobbled administration will have the political clout to implement its sweeping free- trade agenda. The administration is talking with Thailand, several southern African nations and Andes mountain nations about creating separate free-trade agreements with them.

Trade pacts typically lower trade barriers such as tariffs and import quotas, and strengthen intellectual property rights, though international business can and does go forward without them.

Bush is also pushing the Doha Development Agenda, which would lower global agricultural subsidies and tariffs, at the World Trade Organization's ministerial meeting in December. And the administration is committed to creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would include every nation in the Western Hemisphere except Fidel Castro's Cuba.

That ambitious agenda, which is generally backed by U.S. business and agriculture but opposed by labor and environmentalists, has probably not been derailed, but it may well have been slowed, analysts say.

"The battle (over) CAFTA had more to do with (free-trade agreements) than the inequalities of CAFTA itself,'' said Jon Haveman, a research fellow and trade specialist with the Public Policy Institute of California.

"About 80 percent of exports from those countries already enter the U.S. duty-free, so it's really very small,'' Haveman said of CAFTA's expected economic impact. The close vote, he said, "is an indication that things like the Free Trade Area of the Americas are going to have to move more slowly.''

CAFTA opponents are heartened by Bush's difficulty in passing a bill he clearly wanted and say it shows free trade -- and the contentious issues of globalization associated with it in the public mind -- can be stopped.

"That CAFTA ... a trade deal of small economic significance, barely passed the House of Representatives shows that any economically significant attempts to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement model such as the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, would be dead on arrival,'' boasted Public Citizen, a nonprofit, anti-free-trade group, in a statement.

"The CAFTA debate makes clear that a dramatic shift in U.S. trade policy has occurred,'' Public Citizen said, noting that only 15 House Democrats joined Republicans to pass the measure. Earlier trade pacts have usually sailed by with strong bipartisan support.

Free trade may indeed be slowed but it will not be stopped, said John Murphy, vice president of international affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which backed CAFTA and supports free trade.

"CAFTA was unique as a trade pact,'' said Murphy, who noted it was opposed by the powerful U.S. sugar industry, which feared competition from lower-cost Latin America sugar producers.

"Sugar represents one-half of one percent of American agriculture, but it provides 20 percent of the political contributions from agriculture. Sugar punches above its weight,'' Murphy said.

Murphy also said that organized labor's opposition to CAFTA made the tally very close but doesn't think WTO talks or a hemispheric trade pact will necessarily inspire such strong opposition.

Creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas will be difficult, but it will come into being, probably in five to 10 years, Murphy predicted.

Mech

Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA

Thu Aug 04, 2005 2:15 am

CAFTA Passes: Dirty Tricks and Devastating Consequences

Scott Ritsema/www.Prison Planet.tv | August 3 2005

This past week, CAFTA passed the House of Representatives by a 217-215 vote. This vote, especially on the Republican side of the isle, does not reflect the views of the American people or the U.S. Constitution. Even many Rush Limbaugh listeners have called in to voice their strong opposition to this so-called “free trade agreement.” In fact, one poll suggests that half of the country’s Republican voters opposed CAFTA! Why, then, did roughly 80% of Congressional Republicans favor it? But we all know that the Washington insiders are completely out of touch with the American people and the Constitution. So, let’s turn our attention to so-called “free trade agreements” and what they are all about, as well as how CAFTA was actually passed.

CAFTA and NAFTA are not simply agreements; rather, they set up authorities that trump federal, state, and local laws and constitutions. When our elected officials signed CAFTA into law, they signed over a piece of our sovereignty. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress and only Congress the power to regulate trade. NAFTA, on the other hand, sets up a tribunal to rule on all maters of trade. For example, one dispute between the state of Massachusetts and a Canadian real estate company was decided in the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The NAFTA tribunal, however, had different things in mind, and overruled the previous court decision. So, these are unconstitutional decision-making, power-wielding bodies that have no business in American affairs.

CAFTA and NAFTA will not/have not improved economic conditions in America; rather, they have (coupled with intrusive government) decimated the manufacturing base of many communities. Ask any American who lives in a community that has lost manufacturing jobs to Mexico, and you will likely get the same strong condemnation of NAFTA. NAFTA has clearly hurt the American economy. Our trade deficit is growing and our manufacturing base is disappearing. Not to mention the often-neglected fact that having foreign nations manufacturing all our goods is a national security risk. CAFTA will do the very same things to our economy that NAFTA has done.

CAFTA and NAFTA are not simply about economics; rather, they are about open borders and political union as part of the New World Order. As has been hidden in plain sight by the CFR, the economic union is only a stepping stone to the long-dreamed of political union. The stones are as follows: NAFTA then CAFTA then the FTAA then the Pan-American Union (and a regionalized world) then the UN or the New World Order (world government). The massive amounts of evidence supporting this assertion needs its own article. Suffice it to say that the CFR globalists have been open about their plans as well as their strategies, seeking to make an “end-run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece” (Richard Gardner, CFR; in his piece “The Hard Road to World Order” in a 1974 issue of Foreign Affairs, the CFR’s publication).

Finally, CAFTA was not passed fairly by the House; rather, immoral scheming got the CAFTA vote through. The Republicans, who are supposedly the “moral values” party, ought to be ashamed of themselves. The CAFTA vote was stolen, and is a total sham. As Kent Snyder of the Liberty Committee noted, CAFTA was defeated after its allotted 15-minute vote window. Unhappy with the results, the House broke the rules by keeping the vote alive for another hour. At the end of that vote, CAFTA had passed. Or did it? One of the two Congressmen who supposedly abstained from voting, North Carolina Republican, Charles Taylor, did vote “no” on CAFTA, but for some reason his vote didn’t show up on the register.

In sum, CAFTA and NAFTA are surrounded by lies, misunderstandings, and misinformation on all sides. The average American, though, senses the danger in these phony free trade agreements. And, the Constitution prohibits them. It’s time for a wake up call in Congress.

stallion4

Joined: 20 Dec 2004
Posts: 421

Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:41 am

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